Jeppesen Dataplan Inc

Lawyers for five foreign men who allege that a Boeing subsidiary conspired with the CIA in their kidnapping and torture urged a federal appeals court Tuesday to allow their lawsuit to go to trial and their abusers to be held accountable. In the case against Jeppesen DataPlan Inc. of San Jose, the former terrorism suspects were denied their day in court two years ago when a U.S. District Court judge heeded the Bush administration's claim that the case had to be dismissed because its entire subject matter was a state secret.

Lawyers for five foreign men who allege that a Boeing subsidiary conspired with the CIA in their kidnapping and torture urged a federal appeals court Tuesday to allow their lawsuit to go to trial and their abusers to be held accountable. In the case against Jeppesen DataPlan Inc. of San Jose, the former terrorism suspects were denied their day in court two years ago when a U.S. District Court judge heeded the Bush administration's claim that the case had to be dismissed because its entire subject matter was a state secret.

Torture suit: An Oct. 28 article in Section A about the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals voting to rehear en banc the extraordinary-rendition case of Mohamed vs. Jeppesen DataPlan Inc. said that the published order "was unusual in its naming of judges who didn't take part in the vote, including Jay S. Bybee, the former Bush administration lawyer who wrote so-called torture memos." In fact, though judges recuse themselves in only a small fraction of such votes, they are always identified, said David Madden, assistant circuit executive.

The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals took a courageous stand this week when it ruled that five alleged victims of the government's "extraordinary rendition" program -- each of whom says he was kidnapped and tortured at the behest of the U.S. government -- were entitled to their day in court. That may not sound like an extraordinary victory, but it is. The three-judge panel that made the ruling in Mohamed vs. Jeppesen Dataplan Inc.

Five foreign men who sued a San Jose-based CIA contractor for its alleged role in abducting them abroad and spiriting them to secret interrogation sites have exhausted their legal avenues for getting the practice known as "extraordinary rendition" branded a human rights violation. The U.S. Supreme Court decided Monday to let stand a federal appeals court ruling that the president has the power to scuttle the men's lawsuit because state secrets, such as how CIA operatives interrogate terror suspects, could be revealed if the case went to trial.

Five men who allege they were tortured after a Boeing subsidiary delivered them to secret CIA interrogation sites will have to persuade a full panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals that their case should go to trial despite administration claims that it involves state secrets. The court's decision Tuesday to rehear the case of Mohamed vs. Jeppesen DataPlan Inc. of San Jose was unusual in its naming of judges who didn't take part in the vote, including Jay S. Bybee, the former Bush administration lawyer who wrote so-called torture memos.

Five men who claim to have been kidnapped and tortured at the direction of CIA agents are entitled to their day in court to expose alleged U.S. government abuse of terrorism suspects, a federal appeals panel ruled Tuesday. Both former President George W. Bush and President Obama had invoked the state secrets privilege in urging courts to dismiss a lawsuit in which the prisoners described interrogations involving beatings, electric shocks and laceration by scalpel.

February 14, 2008 | Ben Wizner, Ben Wizner is a staff attorney in the national legal department of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Of the myriad tactics the Bush administration uses to prevent oversight of its controversial anti-terror policies, none has been more successful, or more far-reaching, than the state secrets privilege. On Wednesday, the Senate considered, at long last, bipartisan legislation that would place reasonable limits on the executive branch's use of the privilege to terminate lawsuits on dubious grounds.

Khaled El-Masri, a German citizen, was flown at the request of the United States to Afghanistan, where he says he was tortured by the CIA (in a case of mistaken identity) for four months. Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen, was seized in New York and dispatched by U.S. officials to Syria, where he was apparently tortured regularly for almost a year.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a suit Wednesday that accused a Boeing Co. subsidiary of helping the Central Intelligence Agency facilitate "the forced disappearance, torture and inhumane treatment" of three men the government suspected of terrorist involvement. "This is the first time we are accusing a blue-chip American company of profiting from torture," ACLU lawyer Ben Wizner said at a news conference in New York City. Since at least 2001, Jeppesen Dataplan Inc.